An acquaintance of Matisse, Bernier brings a unique historical and personal perspective to this lecture about the Impressionists. She describes how these innovative painters seemed to have the last word on art in the late 19th-century—from portraits to landscapes, from depictions of rural life to urban settings—even as the post-Impressionists were set to take it a stage further. Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Cézanne simply wanted to be themselves, she relates. And by being themselves, they brought painting into the 20th century.

Every year, the renowned lectures given by Rosamond Bernier at the Metropolitan Museum of Art are sold out months in advance. Her lectures are really conversations, intimate chats about artists, their friends, their society, and their work. With this series of DVDs, your chair at home can become the seat you couldn't buy in New York, as you watch the actual performances filmed as they were given "Live at the Met." As cofounder of L'Oeil, the influential vanguard art magazine published in Paris, Bernier became friendly with Matisse, Picasso, Miró, Léger, Braque, Man Ray, Max Ernst, Duchamp, and many other modern masters. These lectures have a depth that only a firsthand acquaintance would allow.